Lily Donaldson strutting the streets of Paris in mom jeans with slightly less tapered, straighter legs

The year is 2017. Skinny, low/mid-rise jeans are fuckin’ dead as disco. Mom jeans are coming back in a big fuckin’ way. Reminiscent of the 80’s and 90’s, mom jeans are characterized by their high waistlines, butt-hugging behinds, and tapered-but-not-tight legs. Usually (but not always) seen in a lighter wash, mom jeans accentuate your butt and thighs, elongate your crotch, and cinch your waist, for a weirdly very flattering fit. I personally prefer mom jeans that don’t have stretch, because high-waisted jeans that are too stretchy don’t give me a sense of sturdy security that stiff denim gives me.

You can find good, stiff, light-wash, tapered mom jeans at thrift stores like Buffalo Exchange or L Train Vintage for relatively cheap. I own two pairs, both of which I bought from an admittedly (sometimes) overpriced thrift shopping app called Depop. One is a pair of silver-tab Levi’s jeans that are a little looser at the thigh and therefore have have more of that carrot shape. The other is a pair of Calvin Klein jeans that are a little tighter at the thighs and (I think) flatter my legs better.

Kendall Jenner in mom jeans with a slimmer silhouette

My Calvin Klein jeans are my favorite jeans ever, although I also love my Levi’s. The CK ones are buttery soft but perfectly sturdy (although one time when things were heating up with a boy he managed to tear off a belt loop and I had to sew it on when I got back to my room at 4am) and perfectly worn in. They were rather long on me when I bought them in their original state, so I cut the legs a bit to fit me better because I don’t have a sewing machine and am too lazy to take them to a tailor.

Mom jeans make anyone’s butt look so good, are oh-so-comfortable, and give yu that casual, don’t-give-a-shit-but-still-look-good look. It’s as close as you can get to wearing sweatpants without wearing sweatpants, except you look fabulous in them. They’re more reminiscent of Friends and 90’s Kate Moss and Winona Ryder than, say, Pulp Fiction or Leon, I think.

And while you can probably spot hundreds, if not thousands, of people donning these jeans on the steps of Low on a warm, sunny day, I really can’t imagine them at Princeton or Yale. I also never felt like my vintage CKs fit in in NYU territory; I always felt weirdly underdressed, but that might be because I was wearing them at night when everyone else was in clubbing attire. I digress a bit, but my point is that mom jeans are so very inexplicably Columbia. Mom jeans are part of that entire “art hoe” aesthetic, but for some reason I don’t see them really belonging at Parson’s either. Maybe just because I don’t know anyone from Parson’s.

A picture of me this Monday wearing mom jeans (vintage Levi’s)

When I was a wee lass at boarding school, I stuck out like a sore thumb with my mom jeans and t-shirt in a sea of Lilly Pulitzer and Vineyard Vines. This is not to say anything against the preppy aesthetic; it just wasn’t my aesthetic. Once my friend saw me in the dining hall in a pair of mom jeans, Birkenstocks, and a tie-dye t-shirt (handmade by yours truly) and told me that I look like I’m ready for NYC. (He wasn’t being pejorative. He’s from Staten Island.) But at Columbia, I fit in perfectly when I’m wearing my silver tab Levi’s, velvet crop top, and a men’s XL tan corduroy button-down (this is actually the exact outfit I wore on Monday: pictured to the right). It’s honestly one of my favorite things about this place.

People tend to get mom jeans confused with dad jeans and boyfriend jeans, however. Man Repeller has a very good article about the difference between mom jeans and dad jeans, complete with a good diagram. For those of you who are too lazy to click and read, dad jeans have no butt, mid-rise waistlines, and straighter legs. Basically your dad’s typical old jeans. These can be any wash except that ultra-dark almost-black color, but I usually think of a darker blue denim when I think of dad jeans. These don’t look good on me because they accentuate all the wrong parts of my hips and legs in the worst way possible, but I love good dad jeans outfits on other people. To make up for the fact that dad jeans look horrible on me, I wear my dad’s old sweaters with my mom jeans. I see a lot of philosophy, English, and history majors wearing dad jeans at Columbia.

Boyfriend jeans are low/mid rise with slightly loose, straight legs. I have a pair from Uniqlo that I never wear anymore and bought in high school when I was trying to switch up my aesthetic and didn’t yet enter the realm of mom jeans. They’re probably small on me. If someone wants to buy them from me I’ll sell for like $20. Very good condition, super soft and comfortable. Honestly these are more like sweatpants than mom jeans. Honestly I should keep them. I just remembered how comfortable they are. I think boyfriend jeans look better in a lighter wash. But I’m curious, are there any straight girls out there who literally wear their boyfriends’ jeans? That’s the idea behind boyfriend jeans, technically, but I feel like I wouldn’t be able to fit in any boy’s jeans. So-called boyfriend jeans are usually made for women and made to better fit a wider hip and curvier butt and thighs. Also I think wearing someone else’s jeans is kinda weird. I think it’s better to just share sweatshirts. I also don’t really see boyfriend jeans around campus.

Kendall Jenner and Lilly Donaldson via Harper’s Bazaar